


Make Anything Work

by Cade Welentine (cadewelentine)



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Cheating, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, One Shot, Trina tries, Trina tries to be a good mom, Trina's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadewelentine/pseuds/Cade%20Welentine
Summary: Trina reasons she can make anything work for Jason.





	Make Anything Work

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This was inspired by this tumblr post: http://eldertwelvecupsofcoffee.tumblr.com/post/162602076461/acekevinprice-please-listen-to-this-version-of-im
> 
> It ended up being way more serious and sad(ish) than I wanted it to be, but I ultimately really like how it turned out. I hope you guys enjoy it, and please leave me some kudos and comments if you do!

“Dinner’s in the fridge.” Trina says, fixing Marvin’s collar the way she  _always_ does. “It’s some of last night’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes; stick it in the microwave for a few minutes and it should be fine.”

“Okay.” Marvin says. Not “thank you”.  _Never_ “thank you”.

“If you really need anything, I left the emergency contact number on the fridge.” Trina goes on. “Mrs. Spitzer will probably answer first, but I’ll get to the phone as soon as I can.”

“I’m sure I won’t need you.” Marvin says. “I’m a grown man.” He seems more distant than usual, which Trina isn’t sure is even possible. He’s distracted by something; she wonders what.

She tugs at his collar. “Will you miss me?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you miss me?”

“Sure, sweetheart.” He gives her a quick kiss, holding her face in his hands for just a moment before walking off to do something else. She doesn’t really believe him, but it’s enough to placate her for now.

“Mom, I’m ready to go.” Jason chirps as he bounds down the stairs, his knapsack slung over his shoulders. His scout uniform is a little wrinkled, and his cap doesn’t sit straight on his head, but Trina decides it’s fine. He’d be in his pajamas soon enough anyway.

“Say goodbye to your father.” She instructs.

“Do I have to?”

“ _Jason_.”

“Fine.”

Trina stands by the door, her own bag in hand, as Jason and Marvin go through a process of saying goodbye that is so awkward, an outward observer might guess the two had never met before.

“Was that so hard?” Trina asks as she and Jason head for the car.

Jason scowls. “Yes.”

* * *

 

For once, Jason is being social, and Trina is thrilled to bits. He and Simon Kolmel are discussing video games; Simon, apparently, has the newest Atari. Jason has no video games, but the way his eyes light up at the prospect, Trina knows a system will be on his wish list for Hanukkah. She makes a mental note to ask Simon’s mother about where she got his; she doesn’t even think about the cost, she’s so thrilled Jason is expressing an interest in something other than playing chess _alone_.

“You should come over next weekend and play Pong!” Simon exclaims. Jason glances back at Trina, who nods her approval, before agreeing. Trina’s heart soars.

She is so happy it almost doesn’t sting when Jason hisses “ _Mom_ ” when she stands too close to him during the lightning presentation. Almost. She still wants to be wanted by him, wanted by one of the men in her life.

She wonders, for a just a second, if Marvin is meeting some other woman right now, if that what was distracting him so. But then, she decides the very notion of that is ridiculous. Marvin had little interest in sex at all--it wasn’t just her, and it wasn’t suddenly going to change for some other nonexistent woman.

At least, she hoped.

* * *

 

“Let’s sleep under the T-Rex!” Jason cries, running over to claim a floor spot under the skeleton in question. Simon is following right behind him, and Trina falls into line a few steps back. Jason is already rolling out his sleeping bag on the cold tile floor; all Trina can think is that she’d much rather be in her soft, warm bed, Marvin snoring beside her. But Jason is beaming, so she reasons she can make it work for tonight. She reasons she could make anything work for Jason.

* * *

 

Trina doesn’t fall asleep. She always has trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places: hotels, friends’ homes, the occasional tent; instead, she stares up at the ceiling and thinks. She tries to figure out when she and Marvin stopped being _friends_. They’d essentially stopped being lovers once she was pregnant--love isn’t sex, Marvin told her, and the sex had finally served its purpose, so they could stop--but they’d still been affectionate. He’d still called her pet names that were personal, not the usual canned “sweethearts” she could get from anyone. He’d still held her hand, and rubbed her feet, and smoothed her hair out of her face while they talked in bed at night. But at some point, all that had stopped. But when? And why?

“Mom?” Jason’s whisper cuts through the silent darkness like a knife. She jumps as his hand touches her shoulder.

She sits up and searches for him in the dark. “Yes, baby?”

“I don’t feel good.”

She pulls him in close, holds his head to her chest.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“I threw up in the bathroom.” He sniffles, and she can tell immediately he’s been crying. “Can we go home?” She can’t really see in the dark, but she’s sure he’s giving her big puppy eyes.

She kisses the top of his head. “Of course we can.”

* * *

 

Trina assumes Marvin must be asleep by this point. She hopes it’s in their bed, but she knows it’s on the couch, the TV still blaring test pattern, a bowl of chips face down on the floor.

“Be quiet, your father’s sleeping.” She tells Jason as she turns the key in the lock. “Just go upstairs and--” She pauses because the door is stuck. It _always_ sticks, and she’s _always_ asking Marvin to fix it. He never does. She assumes he never will.

“Mom, _hurry_.” Jason whines. “I’m gonna be sick again.”

“I’m going as fast as I can.” Trina leans her weight into the door. It pops open with a very loud click, and she wonders if she’s broken it more. But before she can inspect things further, she freezes, because Marvin is in the den, very much awake.

On top of another man.

Marvin sees her immediately, and he freezes, his eyes wide and, for once in the entire time she’s known him, _terrified._ She just stares back, unable to do anything else. At some point, she realizes Jason is in front of her, and she practically slams her hands down over his eyes.

“Mar _v_ _in_ .” The other man whines. “What are you doing? Don’t _stop_.” From his position beneath Marvin, the back of his head just barely visible over the back of the couch, he is completely oblivious to everything that’s going on.

“Um...” Marvin just makes the noise, too startled to do anything else. Then, “We need to put a pin in this, Whizzer.”

His name is _Whizzer_? Trina thinks that might just be the dumbest, fakest name she’s ever heard in her life.

“Do you have to pee?” Whizzer asks, still not getting it. “I told you to go before we--” Marvin is frantically nodding in Trina’s direction, and Whizzer finally turns his head to see her standing there.

“Oh.” He says, his eyes going as wide as Marvin’s.

Poor Jason, still trapped in Trina’s grip, vomits on the floor.

* * *

 

Trina prioritizes Jason, because it’s the only way she can keep herself together, despite desperately wanting to fall to pieces. She gets him cleaned up and into new pajamas, then tucks him into bed.

“Is Dad a homo?” he asks.

“He might be.”

“Is that guy his boyfriend?”

“He might be.”

“How did Dad--”

“Jason. Please. Just go to sleep.” Trina doesn’t mean to be short with him, but if he asks her one more question about Marvin and Whizzer, she’s going to lose her mind.

“I’m sorry Dad’s a prick.” Jason said, snuggling deeper under the covers. Trina pauses; normally, she’d scold him for a comment like that, but tonight is most decidedly _not_ normal.

“Me too.” She says, then swoops in and kisses his forehead.

Trina stands and crosses the room in one swift motion. She stands in the doorway for a moment, before flicking out the lights with a quick “I love you” that Jason echoes. Then, she’s off down the hall. She freezes at the top of the staircase. She’s suddenly sure she cannot do this. She cannot go downstairs and talk to this ‘Whizzer’ and Marvin and ask all the questions she should ask. She cannot deal with all of this, not now. She wishes she was back on the floor of the science museum; sleeping underneath the shadow of the T-Rex seems much more appealing than confronting Marvin’s infidelity.

She takes one step down, then pauses again. She places a hand on the wall to steady herself as she takes a deep shuddering breath.

“Whizzer, stop.” She hears Marvin say in the then.

“Why?” Whizzer replies. “We’ve already been caught, Marv.”

“ _Whizz_.”

Trina wants to scream. Here Marvin is, exchanging affectionate and familiar diminutives with this man; all she’s wanted for months is to hear him call her “Trin”. But she stays where she is, still and eavesdropping.

“What?” Whizzer goes on. “Are you afraid your wife’s gonna see something scandalous? She already saw your _cock_ buried in my _ass_ ; it doesn’t get more scandalous than that.”

Whizzer is so vulgar, Trina’s taken aback. She never thought Marvin was the type to like vulgarity. But then, she never thought Marvin the type to be queer.

“I don’t know...”

“ _Exactly_. Let me rest my head on your shoulder. It’s soft, and I’m tired.”

“Alright.”

And Marvin sounds strangely happy. Or at least, happier than he’s sounded in a long time. Trina feels a burn in her chest, because she is not the cause of that happiness, but she also feels relief, because she no longer has to be the one responsible for his happiness.

She takes another breath and steels herself. She can do this, she thinks. She can talk to Marvin and Whizzer and figure out how to make this _work_. For herself. For the two of them. For Jason.

She thinks she can make anything work for Jason.


End file.
